Will Fight for Food: Super Actual Sellout: Game of the Hour for PC
We’re told often not to judge a book by its cover, or a game by its title. But when that title is Will Fight for Food: Super Actual Sellout: Game of the Hour, it’s pretty hard not to pass some immediate judgement. My first thought upon seeing this mouthful of a name come across my review list was, “Did they even try?” and, frankly, that knee-jerk reaction sums up my experience with the game pretty well. Playing much like the shock-driven Flash games of mid-1990’s internet sinkholes such as Newgounds or EbaumsWorld, this quirky brawler-RPG doesn’t care much about trying to impress. That said, there’s still a few laughs to be had along this madcap journey, and maybe it’s not quite as terrible as the lengthy name could suggest.
Will Fight for Food is, in theory, a mix of brawler and RPG. It’s up to players to determine if they’d prefer to approach things through the game’s humor-laden conversations that often make little sense, or if fists and feet are the preferred language. Following a disgraced wrestler named Jared Dent, the game follows Jared’s attempt to reconcile with his past after an alcohol-fueled incident that rather unceremoniously saw him lose his title.
What Will Fight for Food does pretty well, all things considered, is recreate the experience of Flash games. Unfortunately, the dedication to this extends also to limiting players to keyboard controls, which aren’t especially well-suited for brawling. That said, the incredible simplicity of the game’s combat makes it simple enough to win a fight against anything, which is a bonus since if you’re anything like me, you’ll end up fighting everything. Jared is more than happy to throw on his trusty wrestling mask and start throwing down against any NPC you can find, and often this is a reliable means of moving things forward, for better or for worse.
In all honesty, Will Fight for Food looks, feels, and plays like something I’d expect to find embedded in a browser. While the option to go with conversation or combat is technically present, combat often ends up being unavoidable. While there’s some humor and satisfaction in the game’s willingness to let you beat on anyone, it doesn’t really offer much variety. The game’s story is disconnected and bizarre, without much bearing on how gameplay unfolds until the last few areas. Players can explore freely, but the world is limited in scope and largely bland.
Will Fight for Food: Super Actual Sellout: Game of the Hour is, perhaps, a great game for those who miss the glory days of playing poorly-made Flash games on user-driven websites. Even for this crowd, if such a crowd exists, the $5.99 price on Steam is well over what I’d recommend shelling out for this game’s incredibly short play time. Counting times that I left it paused to do something more entertaining, I clocked a whopping 46 minutes from start to finish. If money were burning a hole in my pocket, I’d sooner spend it on a sewing kit to patch up my pocket than on the few moments of amusement scattered around those minutes. Still, if you’re huge on nostalgia as a factor and you grew up in the era of 90’s internet gaming, you may well find something here that you’d enjoy — but I wouldn’t count on it.
